I decided to try my hand at restoring a vintage shaving brush, my first time ever building or restoring anything. I'm about as mechanically inclined as a wet banana, so I was eager to take on this challenge.

I found a Rubberset 600N in great shape:

It had a nylon knot, which I tried lathering with and it actually made a fairly decent lather. Since I never like taking the easy route, I decided to remove the knot.

I figured I'd give the steam knot removal method a shot, which in hindsight was a bad idea.

It was a bad idea because the cool Rubberset printing on the bottom of the brush disappeared! I'm guessing that due to the heat and placing it on a flat glass tupperware bowl, it got flattened I was really bummed out about this as I thought the Rubberset imprinting was a really cool part of the brush. Live and learn for next time I guess.

The knot didn't come out, but the glue holding the ferrule to the lucite softened enough for me to unscrew the ferrule from the lucite base. I thought the gold coloured disc was some kind of cardboard or spacer or something so I tried to pop it off with a butterknife causing it to break

Turns out, it was painted lucite and the ferrule screws into it to hold it in place. The knot was still firmly in place within the ferrule, held in with the black stuff that was hard as stone but broke off like glass. I drilled out knot and this was the result.

Since the gold disk had discoloured around the edges, I figured I'd sand it down and start fresh. I dremelled off the gold disk and sanded down everything else (lucite and ferrule) with 320 grit sandpaper.

Now, I plan to continue sanding everything with finer grits of sandpaper (400, 800, 1500, 2000 is what I have available) and then hit it up with some headlight restorer/polish.

A few questions for you guys:

What colour should I paint the base (the top part of the lucite handle) so that when I attach the ferrule, when I look up through the handle I don't see the bottom of the knot? I was thinking lime green or something bright to make it really pop.

How do I glue the ferrule to the lucite base? I have the flat ring which makes decent contact with the lucite, but the screw functionality of the ferrule no longer works. I was thinking super glue gel?

What kind of knot should I use? I want something soft and absolutely scritch free. I love the backbone of the TGN finest 2 band, but love the cloud like softness of a silvertip. I mainly use soaps and face lather 99% of the time. Is there an ideal knot?